Session of working group 28 of the National Convent of the EU: implementation of the new law and collective lawsuit in focus

June 6, 2022 – Session of the National Convent of the EU’s working group which monitors negotiations on Serbia’s accession to the EU in negotiation chapter 28 (Consumer and Health Protection), was held today in the Human Rights House. The work of this group within the Convention is managed by CEP.

The main topic of the meeting was a discussion regarding first experiences on the implementation of the new Law on Consumer Protection, and regarding the initiative for introducing a collective lawsuit into our legal framework, in the field of consumer protection. Representatives of the Ministry of Finance and consumers organizations discussed with Dusan Protic, programme manager of CEP for internal market and competition, and Goran Popovic, president of the National Consumer Organization of Serbia (NOPS), about the new aspects provided by that law, efficacy of mediation as a way of solving consumer disputes and the potential of arbitration. Katarina Grga, CEP researcher, presented the study Report on the need to solve the problem of mass litigation and the possibilities of introducing a collective lawsuit into the legal framework of the Republic of Serbia, which was prepared by CEP as a part of the Constituencies for Judicial Reform in Serbia project, which considers the possibility of a collective lawsuit (including cases of consumer disputes) as a solution to the problem of mass litigation, which the courts in Serbia, especially in Belgrade, have faced in previous years.